University of California, Santa Barbara, Department of Music and the Center for the Interdisciplinary Study of Music (CISM) present: 

"Culture and Finance Capital" led by Elizabeth Freudenthal (English Department, UCSB) 

Reading group meeting of the Center for the Interdisciplinary Study of Music (CISM) symposia series on Marxism/Post-Structuralism and Music 

This session, facilitated by Elizabeth Freudenthal, will discuss an essay by Fredric Jameson, Giovannie Arrighi's description and history of contemporary global capitalism, and Veit Erlmann's exploration of the impact of late capitalism on world musics. Our discussion of contemporary capitalism and culture will focus on two dialectical relationships: the first, the supposed abstraction of contemporary capital and the embodied individuals engaged in its production, consumption, and exchange; and the second, global exchange and local production and consumption. Do world musics and US popular music reflect the increasing abstraction of global exchange? In what ways do local artists resist, challenge or take advantage of transnational commerce? "Test cases" for Jameson may include US pop musics, digital art and music, and the world music market. Readings: Fredric Jameson, "Culture and Finance Capital" (Critical Inquiry 1997); Giovanni Arrighi, "Introduction," The Long Twentieth Century (Verso 1994); Veit Erlmann, "The Aesthetics of the Global Imagination: Reflections on World Music in the 1990s" (Public Culture 1996, 8(3) 467-487. On reserve at the Arts Library). This new series includes reading groups, lectures and symposia on Marxist, post-Marxist and post-structuralist theories for the interpretation of musical and other cultural practices, as well as Marxism as a model for shaping cultural practices. Refreshments will be provided.